1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a vending machine, and more particularly relates to a vending machine with security device comprising a security device disposed in between a dispensing device and a driving device of the vending machine for effectively preventing the cards therein from being stolen.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the rapid advancement and development in the automation technology, the automatic vending machines, such as, ticketing machine or lottery ticketing machine, are installed in many public places for satisfying the needs of the consumers to provide convenience and prompt service. The service provided by these machines is for not only reducing the labor cost substantially, but also more acceptable to the consumers because the convenience. However, the general automatic vending machines will be under the supervision only during the routine manual storage check-up or maintenance, and when they are not under the supervision by the authorized personnel, the cards or bills therein can be stolen by using several methods, for example, by using a card stuck with a double-sided adhesive tape, which is mostly to insert into the vending machine for sticking out the cards from inside the vending machine. For preventing such stealing activity, some of the manufacturers of the vending machines enlarged the vertical depth of the slot channel in order to prevent the cards therein being stuck by the inserted card with the double-sided adhesive tape. However, such a scheme still has defects, in that, the cards inside the vending machine can still be stolen by inserting the card with double-sided adhesive tape deeper inside the vending machine with an aid of a string, a steel wire or some other longer flat objects, adhered at a distal end of the card with double-sided adhesive tape. Some others have proposed few other methods for preventing cards from being stolen, such as, to set a lid on the slot channel where the cards are dispended, the lid will be opened only when the card is demanded by a formal purchase and closed right after serving. Nevertheless, this design can not be effective, because a metallic plate or other similar object can be inserted into the slot at the very moment while the lid opens to prevent the lid from closing, and then, the cards can be stuck out by using the same method as mentioned above.
Accordingly it highly desirable to further improve the conventional design to overcome the above defects.
Accordingly, in the view of the foregoing, the present inventor makes a detailed study of related art to evaluate and consider, and uses years of accumulated experience in this field, and through several experiments, to create a new security device for vending machine of the present invention. The present invention provides an innovated cost effective vending machine with a security system to effectively prevent the card inside the vending machine from being stolen.
In accordance with the above objects and other advantages of the present invention as broadly embodied and described herein, a vending machine with security device is provided. The vending machine with security device comprises a security device fitted onto a dispensing device, wherein the security device is positioned in between the dispensing device and a driving device of the vending machine. The security device together with the dispensing device support the dispensing lid and rotates the dispensing lid upwards while the card is being dispensed by the driving device of the vending machine. When the card passes through the dispensing lid of the security device and being dispensed out by the dispensing device of the vending machine, the dispensing lid of the security device will automatically rotate downwards for closing the slot.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a positioning plate is provided at the dispensing device of the vending machine, a sensor is installed on the positioning plate, and a bent sensor plate is installed extending on the flange of the lid of the security device to detect the status of the dispensing lid of the security device.